ECE Faculty Member Awarded Funding from NASA EPSCoR MS RID Grants
November 4, 2022
An associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Mississippi State University was recently awarded funding to develop bio-inspired intelligence algorithms and robotically generated digital twin technology for heterogeneous multi-agent multi-task allocation.
Dr. Chaomin Luo received $50,000 from the NASA EPSCoR MS RID Grant for his project titled “Multi-task Allocation to Multiple Autonomous Agents In-Situ Resource Utilization with Digital Twin Technology.” The NASA EPSCoR RID supports research addressing high-priority NASA research and technology development needs.
“This is a new attempt to develop robotically generated digital twin technology and bio-inspired intelligence algorithms for survivability-focused energy-aware heterogeneous multi-agent task allocation,” Luo said, adding that the task is extremely challenging due to swarm uncertainty, target and environment state, and high real-time allocation requirements.
Luo added, “It will push the boundaries to develop dynamic task allocation for heterogeneous multi-agent swarms with ground targets used in in-situ resource utilization that gathers data and builds up datasets in support for NASA’s autonomous exploration research.”
Luo’s research focuses primarily on development and implementation of practically feasible, computationally efficient, and theoretically solid bio-inspired intelligence techniques for real-time motion control, navigation, and mapping of autonomous agents.
In 2022, Luo was the receipt of MSU Graduate School Outstanding Graduate Student Advisor Award. He also won the Best Paper Award at the 2022 International Conference on Swarm Intelligence. The graduate students Luo advises were recently granted awards including Tingjun Lei (2022 ECE Research Symposium First Place Award, Bagley College of Engineering Student Research Travel Award, 2021 MSU Graduate Research Symposium Poster First Place Award), Amine Taoudi (2021 ECE Research Symposium First Place Award, 2021 EcoCAR MathWorks Model Based Design First Place Award, 2021 EcoCAR Best Connected and Automated Vehicle Testing Award, and 2021 EcoCAR Best Spring Vehicle Testing Award), and Timothy Sellers (Fall 2020, Spring 2021, and Fall 2021 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards, and 2022 MSU Graduate Research Symposium Poster First Place Award).
More information on Luo and his research may be found on ECE’s website.
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Mississippi State University consists of 27 faculty members (including 6 endowed professors), 7 professional staff, and over 700 undergraduate and graduate students with approximately 100 being at the Ph.D. level. With research expenditure of the department in excess of $11.94 million, the department houses the largest High Voltage Laboratory among North American universities.